A Heir to the Legacy
by Daggers hurt
Summary: Hannibal and Clarice have been found and are now in danger...but maybe they have left someone behind to carry on the legacy that is Hannibal Lecter. Ok bad summary, just read it! uh and review please! After book
1. Chapter 1

A Heir to the Legacy

Hannibal Lector

The last time we saw Hannibal Lecter was at the opera, arm in arm with the beautiful Clarice Starling. What a handsome couple they made. We made a deal with Dr Lecter that night. 'We'll leave you alone if you leave us alone!' and it worked! Until now…

We see a silhouette sat at an ornate harpsichord. The notes saw confidently through the air but the players long fingers glide gently across the keys. A glass of blood red Château Margaux stands atop the instrument, the moonlight making it glisten with diamonds. Nearby Clarice Starling sits with her eyes closed, the music lapping up against her. She is not asleep; in fact she has reached a height of consciousness most people will never experience. The scent of her own glass of wine fills her nose, her senses are overwhelmed yet inside she has an inner peace, one she never felt before her time with Hannibal Lecter.

However if you look at the scene closer you will notice that that the person at the Harpsichord is not Hannibal Lecter. He is slightly shorter and his left hand carries an extra finger something Dr Lecter had modified when he first escaped. Hannibal sits opposite Clarice, his eyes also closed as the music engulfs him. Currently he is exploring his memory palace but we dare not enter there yet.

Instead we will return to the teenager perched at the Harpsichord. He has stopped playing now and as he turns round with the grace of a ballerina his maroon eyes glisten in the candle light. He is the precise image of his father.

* * *

After Starling first disappeared Ardelia Mapp had gone through to her side of the Annex and sat on Clarice's sofa but no matter where she went in there it was cold. Starling had left nothing of herself. There were no photos of her family; mainly because she had none! And then after here months her stuff had been packed into boxes and he apartment was given o someone else.

Starling's old office had been taken over pretty much as soon as she left it. The security guards used it during the day as a hang out. At night time, shady couples used it, preferring the anonymity of the dark room for their supposed deeds of devotion and union.

So now as Ardelia thought of Starling she looked at the emerald ring fitted snugly on her middle finger, sat at the dining table in her side of the annex. It had been nine years since she had received the letter from Clarice. She had ignored most of what she said. The letter was kept in her underwear in the hidden compartment at the back and despite Starling telling her not to Ardelia had never stopped looking for her old buddy. However, some people were one step ahead of her…

* * *

In perfect unison Clarice's and the doctor's eyes open. They hear them too late; the slight squeak of the floorboards before the door bursts open and the room fills with ten FBI agents, machine guns aimed straight into the room, Clarice observes that the safety catches are off and they have been set to rapid fire. The great glass windows behind them shatter and broken shards cascade onto the Persian carpet. A row of identical FBI agents spread out to cover the gap and two apache helicopters hovered into view. For a second the scene had frozen and somewhere within Clarice her old mindset and hardness returned, she was ruthless, she could shoot and she would, but this time her alliance had changed…Time started again…

"Lie flat on the floor… hands where I can see them!" voices coming from all directions shouting, the whirring of the helicopters rotor blades, the shattering of the window, more agents crunching over the broken glass and amidst the chaos Clarice was back at Quantico shooting with John Bingham at her shoulder full of the peace and security her gun brought her. She raised the gun and shot, again and again. Her finger pulled the trigger and kept pulling; she had to defend her son. "Ruuuuuuuuuunnnnn! Get out of here now!" She knew they could never get away but if she could just save him…

She saw Hannibal was shooting to; dodging the bullets gracefully as if it took him no effort at all. Around them eleven FBI agents lay on the floor dead and more were injured. Her son still stood there calm as anything by the harpsichord and yet around him all hell was let loose. The last thing Clarice Starling remembered before she was shot was shouting to him.

* * *

"Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnn!" Clarice tossed and turned. She was covered in a cold sweat, her hands clasped together in front of her, as if she still held the gun even in her padded cell. Her wrists were handcuffed together, they were bruised and bloody, nobody had bothered changing them to ones which wouldn't hurt her. They weren't in the business of niceties.

Arizona Super-maximum security prison, the modern day equivalent of Alcatraz just ten times as secure and fifty times as brutal. Starling was in a cell, four padded walls, no windows, just one steel door and a camera; following her every move. She wore the orange jumpsuit and white t-shirt of the inmates and her hair had been shaved to short stubble. Her T-shirt was stained a deep red where a bandage around he ribs seeped dark blood but for the first time since the raid her eyes opened and took in the cell around her._ I'm a criminal; I bet the FBI won't want the media founding out about that one!_

**Authors note: Well, if your reading this that must mean you got to the end of my atrocious first chapter. Yes, don't say anything 'it's already been done' or 'copy'. It hadn't when I wrote it the problem is I subsequently forgot about but what the hell I thought I my as well submit it anyway it' not like anybody actually reads my fictions. But you obviously do so now you're here why you don't go ahead and clicky on that button there. That's the one... The one with send a review. Yes right there you go now all you have to do is tell me how wonderful my story is… I appreciate it…now go! Review me! By the way it isn't exactly the same well in fact not at all the same because I wrote it all on my on. Hah cos' I AM CLEVER!**

**Katherine- Thank You for your review and for pointing out my terrible mistake. I know a poor workman always blames his tools but the auto correct function in Word kept on changing it from Lecter to Lector. That has now been rectified. Once again thanks for pointing that out!**

**Wow that was one long authors note! I apologize for you having to read all that dribble but I didn't make you Thanks For Reading…Now Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"So we meet at last, Dr Lecter, Agent Starling told me a lot about you. But that was a while ago now so why don't you enlighten me as to what you did to her in that time!"

Dr Lecter lifted his eyes to look at the speaker. He was restrained in a straight jacket and belted upright to a metal trolley. He wore a barred mask across his mouth, but his eyes still twinkled with his old curiosity. "I'm sorry I don't think I caught your name?"

His easiness was worrying and it was that that made his questioner pause before giving an answer. "Mapp…Ardelia Mapp."

"Ahhhhhh the famous Ardelia. I know a lot about you too!"

Ardelia couldn't see Lecter's mouth but she knew he was smiling. He had unsettled her and he knew it. Now he was making the most of it!

"Clarice always thought you might be a problem! Even after she sent you that letter she knew you wouldn't stop looking for her and you haven't. How is Clarice anyway? I hope you are treating her well!"

"Clarice is fine." Somewhere in the back of her mind Ardelia realised she was the one that was meant to be asking the questions but it didn't seem to be happening. She had always expected Lecter to be rude and violent like all the other criminals she had met. Yet he wasn't, he was polite and calm, with a gentlemanly air about him. You could almost forget that he was a serial killer who got his kicks from eating his victims. But Ardelia wasn't about to. To her this man had kept her best friend prisoner for five years most likely drugged up on hallucinogenic and sedatives. God knows what he had done to her. For Mapp this was worse than all the murders Hannibal Lecter had committed, for this she wanted revenge and very soon she would get it. Lecter had a dawn appointment to attend very soon and she was going to make sure he didn't miss it.

She looked up to see Lecter searching her with his cool, calculating eyes. Examining every inch of her just like he had Clarice that first time she visited him but Ardelia Mapp held no interest for him. She was the same as every other FBI agent that came to visit him. She thought she was one up from him, she held the power because she was the one with the freedom, at the end of the day she could go back to her little flat while the Dr stayed locked up. She didn't realise Hannibal had more freedom trussed up like a turkey than she would ever have. Inside his head he could go anyway, escape anything…She was the one locked up inside with no place to go. And just like everybody else she thought that she would be the one to break the famous Hannibal Lecter, get inside his head…

Starling had never been like that. She never assumed anything and never bothered to hide her invulnerability with Hannibal. That was what attracted Lecter not the tanned legs flowing from her short skirt and her soaked blouse sticking to her chest. Although that soon became an added bonus…

* * *

Starling had managed to manoeuvre herself with great difficulty until she was propped up against a padded wall. The wound in her side was excruciating, she had tried turning to see how bad it was but found she couldn't turn more than ten degrees before her roughly placed stitches threatened to burst open. However, she didn't need to see the wound to know that whoever had stitched her up hadn't given a damn about pain relief or scar reducement. The stitches had been put in at odd placements, some much too tight and others hardy pulling the skin together at all. It would leave a hell of a mess.

Looking up, Starling saw the camera pointed directly at her. She was being observed. _Well stuff them. _She lifted her bruised and cuffed hands up towards the camera and stuck up her middle fingers. She had spent the last five years pretending to be the wife off a highly successful spinal surgeon well known within the community and a personal friend of the mayor. She hadn't minded, it was the life she knew she had to live, and behind closed doors they had dropped any personas. Clarice loved Hannibal Lecter and would do anything for him but it felt good to finally share who she was with the world. What had she got to loose anyway.

She knew she wouldn't be left in peace much longer she made the most of it. She found Hannibal in the library of the memory palace they now shared. He was sat in one of the large bucket chair waiting for her. When she entered the room he stood up and put his arms round her, escorting her towards the couch. He slowly lifted up her white T-shirt to examine her wound. They didn't need to give verbal comments in their memory palace; here they shared everything including thoughts. Around the wound was red with little raised lumps it was infected. Clarice grimaced as Hannibal prodded around with a swab and some alcohol. It was the only thing he could do, she needed antibiotics soon or she could die!

_Clarice, I need you to listen to me, don't talk. I love you so much, and that's why I need you to hold on for me. Whatever you do be strong and don't let in. Things are going to happen, things that will be difficult for you but you'll cope. You have to for me, I love you and I'll always be here for you, no matter what anyone says, no matter what you see, I'm not going anyway. You're a survivor Clarice; you survive just like your father! But for now you need to stay put, you're in no state to escape, but I promise, hold on and when times seem the darkest your salvation will come!_

_What's going to happen?_

_Don't worry about it now you'll find out soon enough. Now go, you've got visitors…and Clarice remember… I love you!_

Starling opened her eyes immediately; she could hear the electric operated locks of her cell door sliding back. Her peace was up. Two armed guards entered first and hoisted her to her feet. She resisted the urge to fight them; it would get her nowhere, not in this state at least. Behind the guards came a man with dark, slicked back hair. He had an angular face with cold grey eyes that seemed to see nothing yet at the same time see everything. Starling didn't recognise him but within his eyes she saw a ruthlessness she had seen many times before.

The door slid, shut heavy locks clicking into place. "So I finally get to meet the infamous Clarice Starling. You're the talk of the whole FBI at the moment you know. They want to know what he did to you, what he was giving you... but I don't think he gave you anything Clarice. You love him don't you?"

Starling said nothing; she just looked at the man standing in front of her, coolly appraising him. He was quite attractive and obviously fit but new to the job. He was following the textbook method word for word. What he had forgotten was that Starling had read the same textbooks and knew exactly what he was doing! Fist rule, try to butter them up. If it doesn't work get angry…

"Alright we'll play that game and cut to the chase. I've got something you might want to see. Let's go!" Clarice turned her head just in time to see the hypodermic syringe coming towards, she tried twisting out of the way but the guards grip on her arm was solid. The needle plunged into her arm and Clarice instantly felt it taking effect. Her body became heavy and her thoughts slow. Only one thought existed; "Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnn" However this time was different, it wasn't her son in danger it was Hannibal, and then she lost consciousness.

**Authors Note: Well I'm amazed anyone has got this far. Please review me whatever you think this chapter was more a build up to the next chapter but I got fed up off writing so your going to have to wait, but you could make it quicker by clicking that little button there, the one with review on that's right! Go review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Hannibal watched as two guards strapped the limp Clarice into a seat on the other side of the glass. The straps of the electric chair dug into his arms and legs and yet he looked round with a calmness impossible for a man about to be executed. Quite a few people crowded into the rows of seats but all of them kept a distance from Clarice and the guards. These were people who had worked with her before she had left with Hannibal, none of them could look her in the eye now as they filed in ready to watch the execution of the infamous _Hannibal the Cannibal_.

Clarice Starling looked around her, her eyes glazed over with confusion as she tried to remember what was happening, and then as her eyes met Hannibal's they began to clear. She tried to swallow but a lump filled her throat, she felt emotion well up inside her and tears beginning to fill her eyes and then they disappeared leaving only room for anger and hatred. Her anger grew as a grinning face appeared in front of hers. "Poor Clarice, about to loose her cannibal husband!" he crooned and that was it Clarice lost it. The guards had not yet finished strapping her down. She tugged her left arm hard, pulling it from the guards grip and brought it round to hit him directly on the pressure point of the first guard's neck. He slumped instantly to the floor. Her arm continued and caught the second guard under his nose. Instinctively he let go of her and grasped his face. As he did Clarice freed her right arm and unhooked the guard's gun from his waistband. Throughout this the other man had started to back away obviously not wanting to get caught up in the fury. Clarice caught him edging away through the corner of her eye and spun round aiming the gun at his chest. "Stay where you are! Put down any weapons!" He hesitated then stood defiantly still. Clarice stood up and took a step towards him. "I will shoot you, I have nothing to loose right now and if I did shoot you wouldn't be the first person I killed. Although I am sure you know all about that!" Clarice looked at him a grim smile played across her lips. Slowly he reached behind him and bent down placing his gun on the floor, he pushed it across the floor to Clarice. "Now lie down with your fingers interlocked behind your head! You too!" she shouted turning briefly to look at the guard.

Hannibal smiled as he watched Clarice. He had known she had a feisty temper the second he had seen her She had huffed, yanking her sodden coat off her back. He had realised something else in that second too. Clarice Starling was the only person who would ever understand him. _Why?_ Because deep inside of her she felt exactly the same things as he did, somewhere in the back of her mind the same thoughts surfaced but she hid them, kept them locked away in a dark corner of her consciousness. Hannibal had done nothing but allow her to let these thoughts and feelings enter the light. It was for that she would give her life to protect him; and him her. _But that was not what Hannibal wanted!_

Clarice looked round, only one person remained standing. The group of people on the other side of the seating were lying face down on the floor, the one door into the room was blocked, no-one was coming in but Clarice's eyes flashed constantly towards it.

"Clarice?" The voice was faint at first, then it repeated itself; harsher this time. Clarice's head whipped round.

"What do you want Ardelia?" She kept her teeth gritted. The pain in her side was excruciating now but she couldn't let anyone know that.

"I tried to find you, I was worried about you! We all were! Why are you doing this?"

Silence. Clarice's eyes dropped to the floor. Ardelia read it wrong and took a step forward. A bullet flew past her, narrowly missing her head.

"Why do you think I am doing this? Not one of you care if I live or die, this is a show to you. A chance to gloat at Clarice Starling as she watches her husband fry. Well it's not going to happen! Right now I am the one calling the shots not you, there is nothing to stop me killing all of you now!"

"I think you'll find there is!" Her next words were cut out by an ear-piercing scream and the crackle of electricity. Clarice had forgotten one thing! They couldn't get to her; but they had something which mattered a lot more.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"Now would probably be a good time to give up Clarice" He was behind his voice even more annoying and smug than before. He knew he had her right where he needed her to be. It was decision time for Clarice. Her own life or Hannibal's? "Right now your husband is still alive. Not quite so attractive but he will survive. As long as you do what I say"

It would have been easy for Clarice to do what he said but she knew exactly what was going on. This wasn't a training session and this time she wasn't an ally. She was an enemy and one that had nothing to offer. The second she put the gun down they would kill her and nobody would ask any questions. There were no options anymore. There was nothing she could do. It was time to give up.

"Turn round slowly and put the gun on the floor." She began to turn round keeping her hands in the air, where they could be seen. She knew the drill; she'd given it enough times.

Then she saw him. She stopped turning. The man she loved was no longer recognizable. His hair and eyebrows was burnt and stuck to his blistered head. His skin sizzled, red and exposed to the lowest layers. His whole body was covered in major burns. The clothes were stuck, singed to his body. His eyes were blank, burnt until they had dried up completely. And yet he was still alive. His chest rose roughly, hardly noticeable.

He should be dead but he wasn't; they had done it deliberately. Administering the electricity in doses large enough to burn him, but too much to shut his heart down. There was a threshold past which you don't die, so much electricity flows through your body that your heart can't stop. It keeps pumping the boiling blood round your body. Hannibal had passed that threshold.

And then Clarice heard that. As clear as if he was stood next to her in an empty room whispering into her ear. _Don't look. It's not me. I'm safe. Clarice, don't give up! Never give up! Now let them have it. _Lecter was alive. Clarice felt her old fighting spirit flood through her body. There wasn't just her anymore; there was Hannibal and their son.

She spun round raising the gun as she turned. Pulled the trigger once carried on turning. Again. The two guards dropped to the floor. Now only one person stood in her way. She aimed the gun at the dark-haired man and pulled. The bullet hit and he fell; the last obstacle went down like a skittle. She was free, no-one stood before her now. Clarice ran towards the door, her teeth gritted against the pain in her chest as the stitches pulled themselves loose. She was almost there. She could see Hannibal, he was safe, she would be safe. All she had to do was reach him…

And then Clarice saw her. Stepping between her and Hannibal. Ardellia Mapp stood in front of the door her gun squared on Clarice's heart. "Move out of the way!" growled Clarice as she carried on walking towards the door but Ardellia didn't move. Clarice felt the gun cold in her grasp. She knew what she had to do. Time slowed down as she lifted the gun. A salty apology squeezed its way from the corner of her eye as her finger tightened around the trigger. This was it, she was about to kill her best friend. No Ardellia had betrayed her. It was her fault they were here. She deserved to die. Clarice's head began to rationalise what she was doing until there was no doubt in her mind. She pulled the trigger. Seeing in her mind the bullet soaring towards Ardellia, heading straight towards her heart. The bullet hitting, the spray of blood.

But it never happened. The bullet never left the gun. There was no bullet. Just a dry click as the barrel of the gun spun round emptily…

And a gunshot as a bullet left a gun. The problem was the bullet didn't come from Clarice's gun. It came from the door where Ardellia was stood.

A/n Please reveiw. I am sorry it takes me so long to update but I have been on holiay and am still absolutely bogged down with gcse work. However I do reveiw quicker if I know people are waiting and people do actually read the drivvle write. So please go and click the little reveiw button. Thank You.

P.s And please give me any improvements or ideas that you have for this story.


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